A foreign bank account may be small in value. The disclosure risk may not be. CBDT’s Foreign Assets of Small Taxpayers Disclosure Scheme, 2026 gives eligible taxpayers a one-time window to regularise certain previously undisclosed foreign assets and income.
And the numbers are worth noticing. For one category, the scheme covers undisclosed foreign assets/income where the aggregate fair market value does not exceed ₹1 crore.
For another category, specified foreign assets can be covered up to ₹5 crore, subject to the conditions of the scheme.
That changes how we should think about the word “small”.
A forgotten overseas bank account. Shares received while working abroad. An old foreign investment. A property interest that was never reported correctly.
The amount may not look significant today. But foreign-asset disclosure has never been only about the amount sitting in the account. It is also about whether the taxpayer was required to disclose it, whether it was actually disclosed, and whether the underlying source and tax treatment can be explained.
The new Scheme is therefore worth looking at not merely as a compliance formality, but as a limited opportunity to clean up historical foreign-asset reporting.
For taxpayers who have anything sitting outside India, the useful question may not be: “Is the amount small?” It should probably be: “Is the disclosure position clean?”
